THE PROGRAMMES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 668, 24 April 1952, Page 5

THE PROGRAMMES

Sir,-I modestly claim that the gravamen of this appeal represents the ideas of some 25 or so middle-aged men and women in Auckland, mostly of secondary school or University standard, who feel deeply on the matter involved. Where has the music gone? Did it require the death of a loved monarch to give us two days, anyway, of superb radio listening, not merely enjoyment, but thought provoking and enhancing the finest pleasure of living? My personal canvass of this group of listeners has revealed a very real and deep sense. of disappointment, frustration if you like, in the private pleasures of a large group of listeners. Our weekly Listener, still, of course, the finest paper published in this country, is eagerly opened and read with appreciation. But the programmes! I am suggesting that the much vaunted New Deal in listening has proved an utter fiasco. I exclude, of course, the commercial stations, which to most of us are beneath comment. A time there was when, if I am not mistaken, great orchestras, ballads, good middlebrow stuff, -was readily avgilable each evening, and certainly all day on Sundays from at least one Auckland station. Now, although such evenings do sometimes come, one is bored and dismayed by long lists of appalling unknown operas, dreary sonatas, wretched trios, or works by modern composers seemingly without form. One knows the answer‘all tastes," etc., etc.-but is there any hope in sight for the ordinary chap who is heartily sick of all the clever-cleVers and who pays his 25/- (soon to be increased) for one of the few pleasures left to the average suburbanite?

K.

T.

(Auckland).

(The ordinary chap in Auckland has the run of four evening programmes from Auckland’s stations, to say nothing of others from stations further away. Is it really so difficult for him to find "great orchestras, ballads, and middle-brow stuff’’ within this choice? And does the catalogue of ‘appalling unknown operas, dreary sonatas, wretched trios, or works by modern composers seemingly without form" really so frequently extend through and over all these four programmes, or any of the If "K.T."’ will help us by defining and exemplifying "middle-brow stuff’’-the stuff he used, to hear, wants to hear, and now misses

--we shall try. to help him.-

-Ed.)